Seattle + 10

At this stage of
history, one of two things is possible: Either the general population
will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with
community interests guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and
concern for others, or alternatively there will be no destiny to
control.

—Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

REAL OR RE-ENACTMENT?Photographer
Kevin Sharp paired his photos of the 1999 event with stills from the
new film. You might be surprised by what’s real and what’s not. www.YesMagazine.org/wtoquizPhoto by Kevin Sharp, sharpphotography.com

November 30, 2009 will mark
the tenth anniversary of the historic Seattle protest against the World
Trade Organization that stalled the use of multilateral trade
agreements to consolidate global corporate power. This anniversary
presents an extraordinary opportunity for We the People of the United
States to assert our democratic right to reclaim the political power
that corporations have usurped.

We face economic, social, and environmental crises that pose
potentially terminal threats to the United States and to the human
future. We now have perhaps the most able and visionary president in
U.S. history and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate with a
strong electoral mandate for serious visionary leadership to address
these crises. Yet on issues from climate change, peace, trade, and
economic justice to health care and financial restructuring, government
action is limited to cosmetic reforms that fall hopelessly short of
what we need.

As Arianna Huffington observed, lobbyists working
for the interests of Wall Street CEOs, financiers and money managers
who care only for personal financial gain have stripped away the most
substantive provisions of every serious legislative reform initiative
that has come out of the Obama administration often even before the
beginning of committee hearings. Very little gets through the
legislative process without their approval. The time has come for We
the People to evoke the spirit of Seattle ’99 and assert our democratic
sovereignty or accept responsibility for the consequences of our
failure.

In the late 1990s, We the People awoke to the threat to popular
democratic sovereignty and the common good posed by the World Trade
Organization (WTO). Transnational corporations were using multilateral
trade agreements to consolidate their global power by rewriting the
rules of commerce in secret negotiations that circumvented established
democratic processes. The WTO had become their favored vehicle.

In 1999, the WTO announced it would hold a meeting of trade
ministers in Seattle. Labor unions, churches, environmental
organizations, artists, socially responsible business leaders and
others gathered in Seattle at the time of the meeting to declare their
independence from the WTO. Through disciplined nonviolent direct
action, they disrupted the secret negotiations in the face of a violent
police riot. The citizen victory in Seattle emboldened others the world
over to stand up to corporate power and global civil society was born
as a potent political force.

Now, the WTO has announced it
will hold its Seventh Ministerial Conference in Geneva beginning on
November 30, 2009, ten years to the day from the citizen lock down in
Seattle that stalled the WTO juggernaut. Shortly after the WTO Geneva
meeting, world leaders will be meeting in Copenhagen from December
7-18, 2009 to negotiate measures to mitigate the consequences of
climate change. We can assume corporate interests will be well
represented in both meetings by those who care more for securing
corporate profits than for resolving the crises that threaten the human
future.

It is a moment to reclaim the Spirit of Seattle '99 by creating a
countervailing people’s voice for the common good so strong that it
cannot be ignored. Citizen groups across the United States and around
the world are mobilizing for a host of actions in late November and
early December to raise public awareness and hold political decision
makers accountable to the common good. These groups will be addressing
a variety of issues relating to human rights, environmental
sustainability, and peace.

A common thread will bind them together. In most every instance Wall
Street financial institutions and their global counterparts present the
primary barrier to making the rule changes essential to corrective
action.

In response to pressure from corporate interests, responsibility for
strengthening financial regulation is being handed to the Federal
Reserve, which is for all practical purposes run by the Wall Street
banks it presumes to regulate. The Fed operates in secret beyond public accountability
and served as a cheerleader for the excesses that brought down the
global financial system. The single payer option on health care has
been taken off the table. The cap and trade feature of the clean energy bill gives
away eighty-five percent of carbon credits to polluters under terms
that already have financial speculators salivating in anticipation of
the potential for creating a new financial bubble and new derivatives
scams.

So long as We the People submit to Wall Street rule, meaningful
reduction of green house gases, a peace economy, economic and
environmental justice, affordable health care for all, restoration of
the middle class, restrictions on financial speculation, a prohibition
on usury and debt slavery, food security, full-employment in family
wage Green jobs, restructuring social security for long-term viability,
and much else will remain ever out of reach. Economic instability,
extreme inequality, financial fraud, social disintegration, and
environmental collapse will define our national and global way of
life.

Seattle+10 is an opportune moment for people everywhere to speak
with a unified voice to declare their independence from Wall Street
rule and their shared commitment to move forward a 21st century agenda
of justice, peace, and environmental sustainability for all. Follow
November-December 2009 days of action developments on the Seattle+10 Group page on Wiser Earth. Sign up and join in.